Town Square

Missing mail

Original post made
by Keith, Harvest Park Middle School,
on Jun 14, 2010

***Warning to everyone***

Mail has been missing from my and other mail boxes. I expected tickets and a check. Both never showed up. I usually get at least some "spam mail" but 2 of the days the past week there was nothing.
I spoke to another resident and she also told me that the mail was not in her box.
Our boxes sit curb side and can easily be opened by anyone. If you have been expecting mail and did not get it after 10 days, notify the sender.
I am not sure if there is someone or group of people doing this at the post office or a person/group taking mail from the boxes.
If it is a person taking it from my mail box and I see you, I have a baseball bat which you forgot.

Posted by Jerry
a resident of Beratlis Place
on Jun 15, 2010 at 12:15 am

It's likely those thugs from Oakland and Richmond again. Keep an eye out for people who don't belong in the neighborhood and report them to PPD as soon as you spot them. We need to be more vigilant and drive those thugs back to their ghetto hellhole.

Posted by mooseturd
a resident of Pleasanton Valley
on Jun 15, 2010 at 8:48 ammooseturd is a registered user.

I lose a lot of mail. Had one package that had the PO tracking system. They said it was delivered to my home. I was sitting in my living room with a view of the street at the moment of supposed delivery. This wasn't taken from my home. IT WAS NEVER DELIVERED. I went through the whole nine yards with the post office management. Nothing was done.

Our normal postal lady is wonderful and closes the mailbox after delivering our mail. Two of her substitute mail carriers will not close my mail box after delivering mail. I have talked to both of them and one yelled at me and told me he wasn't trained to close mail boxes. The other one just sayed ah ha. Mail thief is common and is now hitting Pleasanton. As a fraud analyst for a bank, I know they use bank statements for ideniity theft. I am in the process of contacting the U.S. Postal Service... Wish me luck...

Posted by Solution
a resident of Val Vista
on Jun 15, 2010 at 10:26 am

This has been a problem for years.
Kids messing around or postal person dropping
the mail on the street/sidewalk, or just plain
delivering it to the wrong address. Seems like
we have a different mail carrier all the time!
We finally just got a PO box which cut down
on the problems immensly. Good luck.

Posted by PO Blues
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Jun 15, 2010 at 11:40 am

A week never passes when we don't get someone else's mail. PO Box is the same. I went to the Post Office to mail something, the guy used my credit card, then I left without it. Went back the next day and literally had to beg anyone to pay attention. All I got was "I don't know nothing about anything" responses. Sounded like the Mafia except with Asian's in Post Office uniforms. Good old government Post Office workers. The only place where "on the job retirement" is as good as gold.

Posted by PW Reader
a resident of Birdland
on Jun 15, 2010 at 12:38 pm

Keith--

Please note that mail theft is a federal offense and must be reported to the main Pleasanton branch postmaster (on Black Avenue). Postal investigators will look into the theft. Pleasanton Police cannot investigate a mail theft, but they can investigate identity theft. Be sure to contact who you were expecting mail from to let them know of the possible theft; perhaps they can re-issue the checks or tickets.

Obtaining a box at the post office will help considerably for receipt of valuable items.

Our family uses a post office box for receipt of bills, checks or valuable packages; our home address is for other mail. (This, however, generates duplicate ad fliers and other junk mail, but the security is worth the trouble.)

Posted by Yup
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on Jun 15, 2010 at 3:54 pm

We had this issue for several weeks last summer. I finally suspended service for a few weeks and went through the hassle of driving to the PO to pick up the mail once/week (at the suggestion of the Postmaster). I *knew* the mail was being taken because we watched the postman put several envelopes into our box as we were leaving, but when we came home an hour later, it was empty. Very frustrating. Given that it seems to be largely a summertime issue, I often wonder if bored kids are responsible for at least some of the thefts.

We were getting other people's mail for about 8 years and I complained to the post office supervisor at least once a year without results. She seemed surprised as if this were only happening to me.

Then one day I received a brokerage statement that we get monthly but, for some reason, this time I glanced at the name in the envelope window and saw that it belonged to my next door neighbor!!!! Wow - if he got our statement he would know all of our finances - not OK. Aside from the fact that I get mail for people anywhere in P-town (not just my local area) so my neighbor was lucky I got his brokerage statement and that it wasn't received by someone else who would get his account number etc. ...and he was lucky that I didn't actually open the envelope (altho it looked exactly like the one I get every month).

That time I really raised hell at the post office...big time. They "got it" and I haven't had a problem in the past year.

The thing is that I lived in another town in the south bay for 20 years (about 10 years ago) and I never got anyone else's mail. I think the problem is definitely with the P-town post office and their carriers.

When I demanded a different carrier after all the problems I had for 8 years, the PO told me they couldn't change the carrier because the route was based on seniority. Can you imagine? So I am stuck with this guy forever (they apparently sort the mail for their route themselves). He was, however, suspended for a few days so I think he's really careful about my mail now.

Posted by Resident
a resident of Valley Trails
on Jun 17, 2010 at 9:11 am

Put a mail slot in your front door and take out your box. We did this a couple of years ago- best thing ever! Also means you can go away for a long weekend and not worry about your mail- you can't put a vacation hold on for 3 days- we were never happy about leaving mail in the box for days on end!

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